Lucy
by KeyPea
Summary: She was in the wrong place at the right time, and it may just have saved her. Set during Jak 2. (Warning, contains dark themes.)
1. Chapter 1

It was all a case of being in the wrong place at the right time, and in the end, Lucy supposed it had saved her life. She remembered the first time she'd seen the young man with the bright green hair, on a windy but sunny day, though she hadn't realised the significance of either the bridge or the man then, and she didn't think he'd noticed her either. She'd kept her head low as he passed the opposite way so he wouldn't think she was staring, but plenty of others were. A young man carrying a rifle who wasn't wearing the red or yellow uniform of the Krimson Guard was a rare occurrence. Was it even legal at all?

OOO

Jak had noticed the first time, only because she looked like she was trying not to stare too much. As he'd passed he'd secretly turned back to look, partly out of natural male curiosity. She was a fairly attractive young woman with red hair, but her green skirt, white long-sleeved top and brown bodice were pretty ordinary, and besides the day was bright and he was on his way for a picnic in the gardens with Keira so he didn't remember he'd seen her until much later, when he saw her again.

When he did see her again, it was in most unusual and disturbing circumstances, though she was on that same bridge over the water in the port of Haven City. The sky was dark, raging with one of the worst storms Haven had ever seen, and Jak was in a bit of trouble with the law. He had come out as far as this to try and escape their attentions, figuring no foot soldier would chase him out over the islands in the driving rain with near zero visibility, and any traffic from the water would be turned back by the churning sea beneath the bridge.

The citizens of Haven weren't stupid either- there were nearly none of them out walking around here in this foul weather. Apart from one.

OOO

Lucy stood at the edge of the highest point of the bridge, all her confidence for what she'd planned to do lost, now she gazed down into the raging waters. In the rain she looked like a drowned rat, her clothes plastered to her and her hair whipping wildly in the same wind that was trying to sweep her off her feet. Lucy shivered, frozen and numb, but she couldn't take her eyes off the water. It seemed to invite her. _Jump, you know you want to_, a small voice in her head said. _You've got nothing to lose_. A conflicting voice chimed in, telling her to _wait, don't do it._ It sounded different somehow, more like it was howled over the wind instead of coming from inside her head. It confused her. She turned around to make sure she wasn't going mad, and that's when she saw the green-haired man with the rifle again. He was advancing slowly up the ramp to her, what was he doing out here?

She got her answer when she saw a Krimson Guard sneak up behind him, then before she could shout back, slam the trigger on his own gun and surround the man with deadly tendrils of electricity. In her haste to throw herself from the bridge she hadn't even heard the alarms ringing across the city, and now she wasn't sure she wanted to throw herself off or find out what happened.

OOO

Jak swore as he went down on one knee. He'd been so concerned with what the woman was doing, he hadn't even seen the KG. The shock if the shot tingled through his body, making him good and mad. From his position he lashed out and heard a grunt from the guard who'd shocked him. Fighting an urge from his muscles to simply lay prone on the floor and allow himself to be arrested, Jak struggled to his feet to face his attacker, another faceless KG in red. He took out the scattergun and blasted it, knocking the KG unconscious as it threw him backwards. Jak quickly scanned the area and was dismayed to see more closing in, too close for him to consider running.

As every nerve in his body twitched, trying to recover from the electricity, he looked around for the woman, who was alternating between looking back and considering the dark waters below. Jak didn't have time to go to her though, instead switching to hand-to-hand combat to knock down the next lot of KG that were on his ass. He parried every blow until an elite unit arrived in a Hellcat and all hell really did break loose. Jak tried to run, to gain some cover behind the tower on the island, but one of the elite guards got close enough to shock him again with one of their guns, and this sent Jak over the edge.

He felt the familiar creeping of the dark eco and went cold with dread, but he was too far along now to stop the transformation, no matter how hard he fought it. He dropped the scattergun and fell to the floor again, clutching the earth as if he might fall off it, and risked another look up at the woman, wishing he could gain control of his tongue and shout for her to run.

OOO

Lucy watched in horror as strands of _purple_ electricity this time started to fly around the man, almost as if it were coming from him instead of the guns. She was transfixed with his face, which took on a weathered look and his eyes flickered with something dangerous. She realised in horror that the electricity was coming from him, and it was changing him physically into something grotesque, angry and almost certainly deadly.

His hair was white by now and he slammed a clawed fist into the ground. _Oh Gods_, Lucy thought. _I wish I'd stayed away from here today. Now I really am going to die. _

The man, or now monster just a little way from her shook his body side to side, almost as if something inside him was trying to fight the transformation. As the man leaped up into the air, she automatically took a step back to get away and teetered on the edge of the bridge, letting out a small scream as she wobbled. As the man landed hard into the ground, a wave of the purple stuff shot out in a circle from his body, vaporising the guards closest to him and throwing the others back. Lucy could back up no more, there was no ground to give, and suddenly there was only fresh air beneath her feet, and she was falling backwards, not knowing if the screams she heard were her own or just in her head as she blacked out .

OOO


	2. Chapter 2

**Lucy Chapter 2**

When the dark eco had finally stopped coursing through his veins and he took his hands from his face, Jak looked around in dismay at the trail of destruction he'd left, or rather, there was nothing left. His dark bomb had vaporised the bodies. He quickly looked up to the bridge but the woman was not there. _No_, Jak thought, _I didn't...?_

He sprinted up the ramp to where she'd been standing, hoping he hadn't killed her when he'd lost control. He peered downwards and hope caught in his chest as he spotted a hint of the white shirt floating in the darkness below. Without stopping to think, look around him for more guards or even take off his boots, he dived from the bridge towards the body below. It was a long way down and he hit the water hard but perfectly, and he broke the surface easily despite the strong undercurrent in the waves. He heard a small cry and he swam towards the sounds, hardly daring believe she was still alive.

A wave blocked her from view for a minute but as he swam over it he saw her, utterly soaked, probably freezing to death and coughing up lungfuls of water, but still clinging to life. She'd managed to hold onto one of the bridge support beams to stop herself being swept away. Jak noticed her skin was tinged purple as he reached out a hand to her.

"Grab on!" He shouted. "I'll help you to shore!"

"I can't believe you came in after me!" She choked, gripping on tightly. "I thought I was going to die." She didn't mention that she'd been up on the bridge in the first place because that's what she'd been trying to achieve. She didn't even mention her purple-tinged skin or Jak's transformation, although she'd obviously noticed. He was the reason she'd half fallen, half jumped, and Jak wondered if the purple was his fault too, perhaps eco irradiation.

OOO

She'd passed out again by the time he'd pulled her from the port and into a hover vehicle. Her eyelids fluttered as he flew them towards The Hip Hog, hoping that Krew wasn't going to be there. He would have taken the woman to the Underground's main hideout in the slums but it was too far and Jak wasn't sure the woman would survive out in the cold that long. It was the Hip Hog or nothing.

Luckily, it was Sig who greeted him as he kicked open the door. Some of the patrons looked up in alarm at Jak's bedraggled state and the limp woman in his arms, but Sig smoothed the situation over and ushered them into the back room, where Tess was drying drinks glasses.

OOO

Lucy awoke on a hard table with a blanket over her. She could see her skirt and bodice draped over a chair nearby, but she could still feel she was wearing her underwear wet from the water in the port. She sat up and wrinkled her nose. It smelled quite bad.

A blonde woman in shorts walked in and Lucy clutched her blanket to her chest until she smiled and spoke. "I'm Tess. You're safe now, though Jak tells me you took quite a tumble."  
Lucy nodded. "Jak is his name? Is he here?"  
"He's gone to attend to some other business, but he'll be back later. Can I get you anything... sorry, what's your name?"  
"It's Lucy. Are my clothes dry?" Lucy asked. Tess shook her head.  
"I've given them a wash for you but they aren't dry yet. I can lend you some other clothes, but you'll probably want a hot bath, am I right?"  
"That sounds lovely."  
"I'll see to it. Stay here." Tess left the room.

Lucy looked about her. She was obviously in some sort of drinking establishment, judging by the barrels and spare glasses surrounding her. Her eyes welled with tears. She'd selfishly gone out to the bridge to try and kill herself, and here she was being saved by people she barely knew. Tess returned soon, handed her some spare clothes and beckoned for her to follow to a bathroom where a hot bath was waiting.

OOO

It wasn't long before Jak returned to the Hip Hog. He went straight into the back room to find the woman sitting waiting, wearing a set of spare clothes Tess must have provided.

"Good, you're awake. Tess tells me your name is Lucy, is that right?" She nodded. "Well Lucy, I'm Jak, and now I'm going to take you somewhere safer than here. The owner could be back any minute and I don't think he'd be happy to see you."

"Why are you helping me?" She asked, gathering up her clothes and leaving the blanket in a neat pile.

"I'm not going to let you wander back out into Haven City after what's happened tonight," he said incredulously. "I've got no idea what the hell you were doing on that bridge but you know too much about me now, and I don't yet trust you enough to be going away with that information."

"I'll just have to prove myself trustworthy then, won't I?" She replied smoothly. "Let's get going if you're so eager to get away."

OOO

Jak drove the hover vehicle far too fast for Lucy's liking, and she was quite relieved when they turned into a dead-end side street in the slums, somewhere near the city wall. She got out on shaky legs and trembled after Jak who was standing in front of a door with a symbol marked on it. Of all the things she thought she'd be doing when she set out for the bridge that afternoon, standing in an alley about to step into into goodness-knows-where with the green haired man hadn't figured on Lucy's possible outcomes.

The door Jak was waiting by slid sideways to reveal an unexpected passageway of stairs downwards, paved in sleek metal that looked quite out of place against the rough stone and rust most slum dwellings were built out of. She followed him down and heard the entry door slide closed behind her, trapping her between it and Jak ,who was moving through another industrial-looking door at the bottom of the stairs that had retracted into the ceiling to let them through.

The room beyond was unexpectedly warm and cosy. A few rows of bunks opened out into an area dominated by a round table, that was cluttered with books, bits of paper and ammunition. Posters and other items dotted the walls and most of the heat was provided by a fire barrel in one corner.

What drew Lucy's attention most though, was a furry orange creature sitting upright in the centre of the table. He scrutinised her carefully and not for the first time that day, Lucy wondered if she were going mad. "So you're the broad that Jak rescued!" The creature said, nearly giving her a heart attack. "Daxter's the name. Welcome to the Underground!"

OOO


End file.
